by Jeff Gunhus
Rick walked into the room, surveying the busy staff until his eyes landed on her. Even given the circumstances, she felt a surge of comfort seeing him. Even in the world of shit they were in, he was a reminder there was still good to be had in the world.
As if to provide a balance to that feeling, Dreslan walked in behind him.
“Here comes some bullshit,” Scott whispered. “Guaranteed.”
Rick walked toward them, stopping to ask a question here and there from agents along the way. Dreslan looked impatient.
“Good morning,” Rick said when he reached them. “Can we grab some time in the boardroom?”
“Sure, Rick,” Scott said, “we’ve got nothing else going on.”
“Looks to me like you’re watching TV and having your morning coffee,” Dreslan said. “I think you can spare a few minutes.”
Mara nudged her dad, glaring at him to behave. The four of them went into the conference room in the back corner of the command center. No one sat down.
“Who was your source about the bomb?” Dreslan asked.
“What, no foreplay?” Scott said.
Dreslan looked as worn out as Mara felt. Hell, she probably looked just as bad, too. They were all on edge, all too aware that they could be on the cusp of one of the greatest intelligence failures of the century. If they had advance warning and Scarvan still managed to pull off his attack, their names would be in the history books. At least Dreslan’s would.
“I’m not fucking around here, Roberts.” He pointed an angry finger at both her and Scott. “Both of you. Your holier-than-thou, cowboy bullshit routine is getting old. You have information that could assist this investigation and you’re withholding it. If this thing happens, you’re going down. Both of you.”
Rick’s eyes were focused on the floor. They’d decided over the last two days to let Dreslan believe that only Alpha Team knew the source. It gave Rick cover to do his job. But the pressure had been constant and intense. Each time, Mara saw the anguish on his face as she took the beating meant for both of them.
“Knowing the source wouldn’t change our response,” Mara said. “It would just blow out an important source of information for later use.”
“Or give my people a chance to review the information this source provided. Dissect it to determine if there was something the two of you missed.” Dreslan sneered. “That’s assuming there even was a source.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Scott said.
“I know about you two. And Hawthorn. Chasing after Omega, this ghost organization you’ve convinced the president is such a threat.” He snorted, the noise reserved for people who believe in UFOs and Bigfoot. “A year of chasing shadows. Not a damn thing to show for it.”
“Sir, why don’t we––” Rick tried to inject, but Dreslan was on a roll.
“Then this Scarvan reappears on the scene. Your team hasn’t proven to be of any value to the president recently. You know what they say, never look a gift horse in the mouth.”
“Why don’t you just spit out what you’re trying to say,” Mara said. “Stop dancing around it.”
Dreslan glared at her. “I think there is no source. That you made the whole damn thing up to reassert yourself into the chain of command. Or worse, maybe there’s some other reason you don’t want the president to be at the UN for his address.”
“Careful, Dreslan,” Scott growled.
“Maybe there’s some other nation who wants him to stay away so the U.S. loses face,” Dreslan said. “Maybe that nation found someone willing to assist them.”
“What you’re describing is an act of treason,” Mara said.
Dreslan shrugged. “If it fits.”
For a few seconds, no one moved. It was as if time had frozen.
Then all hell broke loose.
Scott pushed the chair next to him out of his way and clambered around the conference room table toward Dreslan. Rick stepped in front of his boss, his large bulk and years of protective detail training taking over.
“You son of a bitch,” Scott said.
“Dad, stop,” Mara said.
“I’m not the one holding secrets here, assholes,” Dreslan said. “I’m the one doing my job.”
Scott pushed against Rick but met a brick wall.
“Back down!” Rick yelled at Scott. “Right now!”
But Dreslan, maybe feeling protected, wasn’t done. He pointed to the door to the conference room. “There are uniformed Secret Service outside this room. You two will go with them into custody.”
“This is insane,” Mara said. “On what charge?”
“Obstruction of justice. Impeding a federal investigation. Being assholes,” Dreslan said. “Take your pick.”
“The president will never allow this,” Mara said.
“The president signed off on this,” Dreslan said. “He’s as tired of this game as I am.”
Rick shook his head. Slowly, he turned so he faced Dreslan.
“Rick, no,” Mara said.
“You’ll have to arrest me, too,” Rick said. “I know the source. I was there when he made contact.”
Dreslan turned a new shade of red. Thick veins stood out from the man’s neck. Mara considered the real possibility the man could have a coronary right in front of them. She gave Rick a look that she hoped showed her disappointment in his decision to come clean. It was hard to pull off because she secretly loved that fact he’d stood up to his boss, even if it was tactically wrong-footed.
“What in the hell are you talking about?” Dreslan said.
“I was in the room when the source made contact with Agent Roberts. I witnessed the entire interaction and can say the information she reported from the exchange was full and accurate.”
Dreslan looked from one of them to the other, his anger contorting his body. “I can’t believe this. You’re right, I should lock all three of you up.”
“Mara and I are the only ones who know the source’s identity. Scott and Hawthorn have no idea. Our silence was a condition of us receiving the information.”
“A single, uncorroborated source?” Dreslan raged. “Are you all out of your minds?”
Mara spoke in soft tones, trying to deescalate the tension. “Let’s say for a second we were played by this source. That it was misinformation. Every precaution you’ve taken here at the UN building were things you already would have done. The only difference is that you received unlimited budget to execute your mission. Where’s the harm?”
Dreslan fell quiet. He took several deep breaths, regaining his composure. When he spoke, his professional demeanor had returned. “The harm is that if a bomb goes off in the General Assembly, killing every person in the room including the president of the United States, we’re all going to spend the rest of our lives wondering what we could have done differently to stop it. I’ll have doubt. You two,” he said, pointing to Rick and Mara, “will have certainty that you made a bad decision.”
A loud knock on the door, then it opened.
It was Anna.
She read the room easily enough but didn’t seem thrown by the tension.
“We found the bomb,” she said. “And I’m not sure what’s more incredible, where it was or who found it.”
CHAPTER 50
Mara gave Jordi Pines a huge hug. He smelled like pizza and Axe body spray, but she didn’t care.
“Easy, Mara,” he said. “You’ll wrinkle my shirt.”
She clapped him on the shoulder. It was hard to find a section of his shirt that wasn’t covered with wrinkles. He was as smart as they came, but you’d never guess it by looking at him. In fact, Dreslan had balked when they’d insisted Jordi come up and aid the search. The FBI presence on the task force really didn’t want him. He’d once worked for them and there was widespread fear in the leadership that he’d left with more than just his ergonomic chair and keyboard. Jordi had hinted that he might have slipped a few insurance cards out of the FBI’s deck. Just in case.
“
Tell us,” Scott said, speaking for everyone in the room.
Jordi looked to Anna, who pursed her mouth shut and motioned him forward. She wasn’t going to do any of the talking for him.
“It was nothing, really,” Jordi said. “Just tried to think like a diabolical nut cruncher myself. How would I do it? How would I get a bomb in the building without anyone knowing?”
Dreslan shifted his weight, impatient. But the headline that they’d found the bomb had him holding his tongue.
“We knew from Mara’s source that it was in pieces, requiring Scarvan or some minion of his to assemble on-site. The fact that it had polonium was another piece of the puzzle. Which is why we have all these sniffers here. Easy to fool if the nuclear material is encased in lead. Wouldn’t even need to remove it from the lead casing at all prior to the explosion, assuming whatever compartment it was in would get shattered.”
“Let’s get to it,” Scott said. “The short version.”
Jordi looked annoyed. There were few things he liked more than describing his brilliance to an audience.
“The piece no one else was looking for was the detonator,” Jordi said. “There was a chance Scarvan was going to bring it in with him when he assembled today, but I didn’t think so. It’s gonna be hard enough for him to sneak in already.” Jordi cast a nervous glance over at Dreslan and Rick. “But we all think he’s going to find a way to pull it off. Still, why add carrying a detonator on your person when trying to do the impossible? No, I decided the denotator had to be in the building already.”
“You found an unbuilt bomb by tracking a detonator that wasn’t activated yet?” Rick asked.
Jordi beamed. “When you say it that way, sounds bloody brilliant, doesn’t it?”
“Jordi,” Mara said, growing impatient herself. She thought Dreslan might come across the table any second and choke the rest of the information out of her friend if he didn’t get on with it.
“Another point of info from Mara’s source. A cell phone trigger. Pretty typical among assholes trying to blow shit up. It’s in all the movies. Simple. Effective. Elegant, even. But we have the technology to block cell phone reception in any given area. Once he knew Scott and Mara were on his trail, he had to think they would figure out what his plan might be and take the precaution to shut down cell phone use in the UN building. If they could convince the twats in charge of the thing to do it, that is.”
“We better be getting to the goddamn point here,” Dreslan said.
“Jordi, please,” Mara said.
Jordi nodded. Even he had the emotional intelligence to see Dreslan was on the razor’s edge. “Mara’s source said long-wave radio-frequency trigger. But, if it’s me, I want a two-way exchange. I want the ability to perform a system check. So, I did two things. One, created portable RF blockers.” He pulled out a small metal disc from his pocket. “RF for radio frequency for the slowpokes in the room. A ten-time improvement over the jammers typically used, covering a much broader spectrum, especially ultra–long wave, which typically isn’t even a consideration. Has to be within seventy-five feet of the bomb to work, so you need a lot of them. But I figured we could use them to create a shield inside the General Assembly room. We turn off cell phone and block all RF, no detonation.”
“But you said you found the bomb,” Rick said. “Did you, or did you just figure out a way to block the detonation?”
Jordi sniffed. “You say that like it’s no big deal. But you’re right. I said I did two things. And this is where I really outdid myself,” Jordi said. “I wired into all the nuke sniffers you lot have in the building. They update through long-wave radio frequency. So, I piggybacked on their sys-admin protocols to measure their RF inputs, then created an algorithm to search for unexpected spikes or aberrant broadcasts. Found quite a few, so had to refine the search routine a few times, then work out a tri-angulation––”
“It was located in the offices of the Greek mission to the UN,” Anna said. “Seems like Father Spiros’s influence spread farther than Mount Athos.”
Jordi slumped his shoulders. “Yeah, we found the bomb in the Greeks’ office,” he mumbled. “Thanks, Anna.”
Anna rubbed his shoulder. “Sorry, dear. But you were carrying on.”
Mara took in the new information. In retrospect, it seemed an obvious choice. Then again, Scarvan’s career had created contacts throughout the world. Especially in the roughest corners of the globe. All of whom held offices at the United Nations. But the Greek delegation would have members committed to the Church. Perhaps Father Spiros had plotted for years to get his acolytes into positions of authority for just such a moment. But it would have taken someone like Scarvan to not only source and provision a bomb like this, but to execute the final infiltration into the General Assembly.
Dreslan pulled his phone from his jacket.
“Who are you calling?” Scott asked.
“Coordinating the FBI bomb squad and the evacuation of the building until we secure the bomb,” Dreslan said.
“Wait,” Scott said. He turned to Jordi and Anna. “Who else knows we found it?”
“The offices were empty for the security sweep,” Anna said. “So just the two FBI bomb squad guys that went with us. They confirm it’s in two sections, so it has basic assembly still required. I told them not to report it up the chain of command until Dreslan gave them authority to do so.”
“Did they listen to you?” Mara asked, not sure how well the FBI was going to listen to a Czech operative on loan to Alpha Team.
“I took their radios,” she said. “And sat their asses outside this door.”
Mara made eye contact with Rick. She wanted him to be the one to suggest it.
“Sir,” he said, turning to Dreslan. “We have the bait. Let’s use it to catch a fish.”
CHAPTER 51
Jacobslav Scarvan completed his prayers close to three a.m. He felt the true presence of God flowing through him, pure rage and vengeance for the insults suffered at the hands of His own creation. The world had ignored the rules as had been clearly laid out.
From the beginning, obedience had been the only requirement.
And humanity had failed on every level imaginable.
Scarvan’s thoughts turned to the story of the man tasked with guarding the Ark of the Covenant back in the time of Moses leading the Jews to the promised land. After days of marching in procession, the ark holding the sacred Ten Commandments began to slide from the litter on which it was being carried. This man, seeing the ark about to fall, ran to it, hefting his shoulder against it to prop it up. The second he touched the ark, God struck him down. It wasn’t that the ark held any particular inherent power; instead it was God meting out His justice into the world. Man had been told not to touch the ark, told that God did not need their protection. The man’s action had been an insult, one that God would not suffer.
He and Father Spiros had debated this story many times. If it were true that God’s point was that He needed no assistance from mere mortals, then why had so many wars been fought for His glory? Why were they being called to drive His plan forward? If God wanted to strike down the world, why not simply send another great flood? Or burn humanity to the ground as He had done to the Sodomites?
Father Spiros had told him to search his heart for the answer. To ask of himself whether he felt the calling to be a vessel for God’s work. To wonder at the honor of being an instrument of a divine plan.
In the end, the visions were clear. God willed his actions. That had pleased Father Spiros.
What hadn’t pleased him was God’s directive to care for Father Spiros until his death. Then and only then was he to return to the world.
He wondered whether a similar vision had driven his friend and mentor to end his life in order to pave the way for Scarvan to complete his task.
He’d found the old man’s robe and shoes on the cliff’s edge. A search in the raging waters below had not turned up the body. A strong rip current meant the old man’s
body could have ended up a mile off the shore, eaten by sharks, never to be found.
The loss had been hard to take. Not only to lose his spiritual guide, but the evidence showed that Father Spiros had done the unthinkable. Suicide. An abomination in God’s eyes. Eternal condemnation.
This ultimate sacrifice riddled Scarvan with guilt. Had he misinterpreted God’s commandment that he not embark on his mission of vengeance until Father Spiros had gone to the Lord’s embrace? The General Assembly gathering was too perfect an opportunity to let pass, Father Spiros had argued. In his own way, the old man had cleared the one obstacle blocking Scarvan. But at such a cost.
He prayed each day for his mentor’s soul, even though he knew for certain that Father Spiros would burn in hell for what he’d done.
Perhaps Scarvan completing his mission would earn him enough of God’s favor to earn a special dispensation for his friend.
The knock on the door startled him even though it was expected.
He viewed the hallway through the peephole, then opened the door.
Alexis Papadopoulos, cultural attaché to the Greek delegation to the United Nations, walked in, bowing his head reverently as he did.
Alexis was in his early sixties but had lived the first half of his life working the family olive tree farm. His face carried the wrinkles of a much older man. He was lean and almost exactly Scarvan’s height.
The other thing they’d shared in their life was a devotion to Father Spiros.
That, matched with Scarvan’s teaching of basic tradecraft, had made Alexis a vital way to get the bomb into the UN building. Even the man’s last name, the most common in Greece, lent itself to the mission. Such a common name made background checks more difficult, turning up duplicates and false positives that complicated records.
Another example of God sending the perfect vessel at the perfect time.
Nearly perfect, that was. Early on, Father Spiros had recognized Alexis’s potential value to them. On Father Spiros’s instruction, he’d entered the bureaucracy and worked his way up the ladder in the foreign service. Father Spiros had directed the man’s career for the last five years, using his political clout to get him the spot on the UN delegation.